Medical injectors and syringes containing fluid, such as contrast media, are commonly used to inject fluid into a patient in a wide variety of diagnostic procedures. Injectors of the front-loading type are often used in such procedures. U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858, assigned to the common assignee of the present application, provides a detailed description of injectors of the front-loading type and corresponding syringe designs, and is fully incorporated herein by reference. One advantage of the front-loading injector of U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858 is that a syringe can readily be loaded onto and removed from the injector head without the need to disconnect the fluid path from the syringe to the patient. Another advantage of the front-loading injector of U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858 is that the drive means of the injector head may be disengaged and retracted from the syringe plunger without retracting the syringe plunger, thus substantially reducing the risk of withdrawing fluid from the patient after completion of the diagnostic procedure. This feature is also taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,980, assigned to the common assignee of the present application, and fully incorporated herein by reference.
As discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858, a syringe used with a front-loading injector requires a specially designed readily releasable mounting mechanism for securing the syringe to the front wall of the injector head and a specially designed readily releasable mounting mechanism for securing the syringe plunger to the piston head of the injector. These required mounting mechanisms oftentimes increase the cost of the syringes and prohibit the use of syringes of other various types with front-loading injectors. Syringes of other various types generally include a syringe body, a plunger reciprocally mounted therein, and a plunger extension engagable by a drive means. Thus, it is desirable to design an adapter for use with syringes of various types to permit use of these syringes with front-loading injectors.